How I Would Have Done "Heart of the Swarm" (SPOILERS)

Something I've come to believe over the years is that it's easy to criticize, but more difficult to suggest viable alternatives. My last post was a critique of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm; this post will be how I would have handled the storyline if I were writing it.

(For the record, all I know about the story comes from cinematics and TVTropes. All errors are my own.)

*The beginning of the campaign is awesome as it is. The TVTropes "Funny" page references a couple really amusing exchanges between Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan (one pertaining to zerglings and the other to their different types of hair) that are really clever. And Arcturus Mengsk attacking the Hyperion even when Matt Horner has broadcast that his son is aboard does a good job showing just how vindictive Daddy Mengsk is--Valerian says, "My father will take any piece off the chessboard to get the queen" or something to that effect.  And when Kerrigan thinks Raynor is dead, that and its consequences are well-done.

My only beef is that everyone on the bridge seems too relaxed when Kerrigan rumbles in during the escape from the Umojan facility. The core of Raynor's Raiders were people who deserted Mengsk over Kerrigan's betrayal in the first game, but she's been the terrible overlord of the Zerg for the last five years, the Zerg they'd fought in a battle from hell only a few weeks ago (I don't know the length of time the novel StarCraft II: Flashpoint covers between Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm). I would expect some more mistrust, especially given how in Flashpoint, Kerrigan accidentally killed one of the Raiders while fighting the Dominion.

*However, I would have avoided the return to Zerus, the whole goofy "Primal Zerg" story, and Kerrigan voluntarily re-infesting herself. Given how Zeratul had returned to Aiur at some point prior to Wings of Liberty and communed with the shade of Tassadar near the Overmind's corpse, it would be better if he had told Kerrigan she had to go to Aiur to find out what she needs to know to face the Dark Voice, the undead Xel'Naga Amon. That'd also set up a fight with the Protoss, returning en masse to reclaim their Zerg-ravaged homeworld. They could assume Kerrigan is there to reinforce the Zerg occupation forces or simply refuse to believe that she's there with Zeratul's blessing and try to kill her to avenge Aldaris and Raszagal from Brood War. If there's some need to remove the "taint" of the Dark Voice from Kerrigan herself (dubious as other than the hair she's not Zerg anymore and could control the Zerg even as a full human in the back-story), this could be done via some psychic thing with the dead Overmind and the ghostly Tassadar rather than reinfestation.

*The confrontation with Samir Duran can come as it did in the game. That was fun. How Kerrigan could win it without being reinfested (she ultimately used her extra Zerg limbs to kill Duran even after he had impaled her on some kind of energy blade) I'm not sure. If she's not reinfested, Duran can't momentarily shock her by shifting into her human form, so perhaps he can simply use the fact he's got thousands of years of combat experience (and non-"Primal" Kerrigan isn't as powerful) to knock her around for a bit before she manages to turn the tables.

*The rescue of Raynor from the prison and the war with the Dominion can go roughly the same as before. Raynor will not abandon her because she hasn't voluntarily re-infested, but if the "Zerg only" dynamic needs to be preserved, maybe the Raiders (and Valerian) mount a big diversionary attack somewhere else, allowing for Kerrigan to destroy the hybrid-creation facilities and march on Korhal. This is where we could work in my idea from a couple years back about Kerrigan finding Raynor's son in the Dominion Ghost program. Or, if the Ghost Academy doesn't get destroyed, maybe she finds him being used in the hybrid-creation program somehow. He is a psychic, after all.

*Like in the game, everyone comes together for the final assault on Korhal. Maybe the remnants of the UED expeditionary force can join with the Raiders for the human part of the attack, acknowledging the UED's remaining presence in the sector. And since how some of the Zerg campaign missions mirror Terran missions from Wings of Liberty (according to what I've read), Mengsk's recapture of the Xel'Naga artifact allows for a reversed version of the last Terran missions from Wings of Liberty. The artifact could be used to blunt individual Zerg attacks or used to wipe out massive numbers of Zerg a la the end of Wings of Liberty, forcing the human troops to bear more of the burden.

Given how much of Kerrigan's "I'm not a monster anymore" comes from her desire to avoid civilian deaths even if it puts her at a military disadvantage, maybe they send Valerian to negotiate Arcturus's surrender rather than face an extended bloodbath on Korhal. They might think him being the Dominion heir will mean something to the old man, or Valerian himself might volunteer out of some sense of duty. Instead Arcturus takes Valerian hostage to try to force Raynor and Kerrigan to surrender or something like that. Raynor and Kerrigan try to stage a commando mission (maybe just the two of them, like at the beginning of the game) to rescue Valerian and it all goes south. Valerian is killed (perhaps by accident) and Arcturus flees with his most psychotic loyalists to the Dark Voice, perhaps thinking that he'll be able to take Duran's place as the Dark Voice's Antichrist.

Although the later stages of the campaign are more hopeful and sunny than canon (no reinfestation and breach with Raynor), it all goes to hell at the end. Valerian would have represented a chance to hold the Terran Dominion together after Mengsk's overthrow--now there's only Raynor, a known collaborator with two different species of aliens, and Kerrigan, who most of human space views as a monster. And thanks to Kerrigan mistakenly thinking Raynor was dead, there's no respected General Horace Warfield to back them up.

Although the Dark Voice will not be able to use the Zerg to exterminate the Terrans and Protoss like in Zeratul's vision, instead human space will be disunited and at least parts of the splintered Dominion might be willing to ally with the Dark Voice instead of a pair of (to them) species-traitors. And with Mengsk taking the Xel'Naga artifact to the Dark Voice, the enemy now has a potential weapon of genocide against both the Zerg and apparently the Protoss.

(Got to give credit where it's due. The idea that Mengsk might ally with the Dark Voice and the Terrans would be "meat shields" for the hybrids instead of the Zerg during the coming uber-war might have come from someone else on Battle.net discussions.)

Thoughts on "Heart of the Swarm" (MAJOR SPOILERS)

As you all know, I'm a big fan of the computer game StarCraft. I bought the original game when it came out when I was in middle school, I've read some of the novels set in that universe, and although the computer I had at the time couldn't handle it, I at least took a stab at Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty.

I plotted out a novel I could pitch to Blizzard that would take place between Wings of Liberty and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, a novel that would have stood in the place of StarCraft II: Flashpoint. Although gameplay is always fun, my major interest has been in the storyline. It was for that reason that last night, before the game even came out, I watched the uploaded cinematics on YouTube.

So how does Heart of the Swarm come out story-wise? Well...

*They didn't kill off Jim Raynor, which would have a major downer. Instead they let Sarah Kerrigan think he was killed, which certainly pushed her in a very dark direction for awhile. That scene was well-done. Flashpoint began with Raynor abandoning his longtime friend Tychus Findlay on Char after shooting him to protect an de-infested and semi-catatonic Kerrigan and I was afraid some infested undead Tychus would show up and kill Raynor. Earlier SC material had UED commander Alexei Stukov, who was killed in battle, infested by the Zerg, and later de-infested, so there's precedent. If Tychus didn't immediately die from Raynor's bullet, it would have been even easier to have him returning "from the dead," since the Zerg could have prevented him from dying in the first place. Unfortunately this meant the death of Horace Warfield, who didn't really deserve it.

*I liked the second round between Kerrigan and Zeratul. The timing of Zeratul grabbing her by the face and mind-melding with her was actually quite funny.

*However, I didn't like the idea of "primal Zerg" on the Zerg homeworld of Zerus and how they were especially adaptable. The Zerg have always been especially adaptable. There was no need to have the return to Zerus in the first place, especially since the Zerg left it hundreds if not thousands of years before and it's likely EXTREMELY far away. Plus any Zerg left behind would probably be second-stringers the Overmind figured wouldn't be that useful for its campaigns of conquest and assimilation across the galaxy. Kerrigan could simply sail around looking for new life-forms to incorporate into the Swarm, have a protracted war with the Dominion or Protoss who don't buy Zeratul's theory that she's needed to save the universe, or go to Aiur to commune with the dead Overmind and the shade of Tassadar to learn more about the Dark Voice, the "real enemy."

*And the "primal Zerg" thing ties into her voluntarily being reinfested, in order to better control the "primal Zerg." Although this was hinted at from very early on (how she was building her powers "through mutations"), there's tinkering with your DNA to be faster or stronger or have retractable claws or something and there's turning yourself back into the monster that killed millions if not billions of people, including your boyfriend's Protoss battle-buddy Fenix. I did like the confrontation between Raynor and re-infested Kerrigan though, in which long-forgotten Fenix is finally brought up.

*Samir Duran is dealt with. That fight was a fun one, especially when Duran confronts her in the guise of Raynor. Yikes. We also learned who or what the Dark Voice actually is--apparently it's an undead Xel'Naga. The idea that the Zerg had not completely wiped out the Xel'Naga and they'd be back for revenge was circulating in the fan community as early as Wings of Liberty and possibly as early as the Zeratul bonus mission in Brood War in which he learns Duran is creating Protoss-Zerg hybrids.

*The ending. That SOB Arcturus Mengsk gets what he deserves at long last, although I was hoping he'd bug off with the hybrids he and Duran had created in the face of a coup by his two bitterest enemies and his own son in hopes of immortality, supernatural powers, etc. from the Dark Voice. That way he can stay a dangerous threat to the Dominion, our heroes, etc. well into Legacy of the Void. Power-mad near-psychopath (or full psychopath) that he is, that'd be in-character. And the big difference from the leaked trailer from over a year ago and the canonical ending is that Mengsk had the Xel'Naga artifact that de-infested Kerrigan in the first place, something that Raynor and friends have now. That's actually a "Hope Spot" in TVTropes terms, since it allows for her to get de-infested again later on. Raynor and Kerrigan's last conversation is also rather touching.

(Yes, as far as Raynor and Kerrigan are concerned, I'm a hopeless romantic. Sue me.)

*It looks like they didn't go with the idea I had where Kerrigan liberates the Ghost Academy and finds Johnny Raynor, Raynor's son from his first marriage who was strongly implied to be taken by the Ghost program during the days of the Confederacy. Darn--that could have been used to create some additional depth and flesh out Raynor's back-story some more. I posted the idea on Blizzard discussion forum (here and possibly other places) and some people actually really liked the idea. However, I remember reading somewhere that companies are very careful with ideas they find online for fear of getting sued. And apparently one can only join Blizzard's creative team if someone dies or retires, so good luck with me getting hired.

*Kerrigan's last speech as the Zerg leave Korhal sets the stage for the next game. Having learned from Duran who the "real enemy" is, she's going to fight him (it?) with the full might of the Zerg. Since the last part of SC2 is the Protoss campaign, I'm assuming the player will be fighting alongside her against the Dark Voice in the last game. And scuttlebutt is we'll see Raynor again...

New "StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm" Trailer: "Vengeance"

This afternoon, a new trailer for StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm went online. For your convenience, I'm posting it here:



Jeez, this one looks dark. Among other things, it strongly implies that over the course of the game, Sarah Kerrigan will turn herself back into the Queen of Blades, this time of her own free will. No wonder Jim Raynor sounds upset. There's also a scene where it looks like the Terran Dominion has Raynor's Raiders in a bad spot.

Hopefully the trailer is cut to make things look worse than they are to get attention, but I think there's a pattern than the middle campaign in a trilogy is darker than the rest. In the original StarCraft, for example, the Zerg Swarm invested the Protoss homeworld of Aiur and the Overmind physically nested on its surface, while in WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos, the Undead overran most of the known world and physically summoned the Burning Legion.

We'll have to see...

A Sneak Preview of a Post To Come...

Sometime in the next few days, I'm going to post the short synopsis of my abortive Starcraft novel, the one that would have filled the gap between Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm. The short synopsis, since the long synopsis would be rather, well, long.

Maybe I'll post the long synopsis as well, but it wouldn't be text on the page due to its length. Instead, it would probably be a PDF one could link to. I'll need to figure out how to do that though.

There might be a sequel post where I compare and contrast my vision for the "bridge" between the two stories and that of Christie Golden, whose novel StarCraft II: Flashpoint played the same role my story would have.

Book Review: "Starcraft 2: Flashpoint" (Spoiler-Free)

Found out the other day that a new novel StarCraft II: Flashpoint by Christie Golden had come out. It serves as a bridge between the end of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, the latter of which is slated for release in March 2013.

Given how I had prepared to pitch a similar novel concept to Blizzard, it got my attention and so I bought a copy while getting some birthday presents for friends. Here's my review...

I read the whole thing in perhaps two or three hours. It's certainly a quick and entertaining read. Even though I'd accidentally spoiled myself massively (I found out most of what happened from the Starcraft Wiki's article on Sarah Kerrigan, which I was posting into my message-board for a dicussion), it was still a pretty good book. And the Wiki article didn't include some surprising plot twists.

We get to know Valerian Mengsk rather well throughout the story. It's good they didn't simply make him Arcturus Mengsk 2.0. It's also good that they don't make him a prissy wimp either. Although he's a prince of the Terran Dominion, his upbringing was anything but coddling.

The book has some very good descriptive language. I had gotten six pages in and found the following description of a hydralisk:

"A maglev train-wreck combination of insects with scythelike arms, snake bodies, teeth that never ended, and neosteel-penetrating spines they fired from their backs."

There's also some amusing bits, including one flashback depicting Jim Raynor constantly thinking his lieutenant Matt Horner's name is actually Jack and another to Raynor and Kerrigan going to a honky-tonk on an actual date. Sarah Kerrigan, one of the most dangerous women in existence even before being turned into a scary bug queen with dreads, in a dress. On a date. Take that in for a moment. There's also a scene where Raynor and friends are on a crippled dropship heading for his flagship and all they can do is see if the Hyperion maneuvers in such a way to "catch" them in its hangar. Or else they die. Raynor's reaction to the whole situation is amusing.

Also, although some people have complained about the ending of Wings of Liberty reducing one of the most iconic female video game characters into a damsel in distress needing rescuing by Raynor (which it really doesn't), that complaint is answered massively by what happens when Kerrigan gets her groove back. Do not threaten Raynor. Ever.


That being said, the novel wasn't perfect. For starters, the cover is rather misleading. It depicts Raynor and Kerrigan fighting together on the battlefield, with Kerrigan having her normal human red hair. Since this is supposed to be set after the events of Wings of Liberty, they should have depicted her with that funky Zerg hair that somehow survived the deployment of the Xel'Naga artifact that obliterated the primary hive cluster. It would have certainly gotten attention. To be fair, the book does contain some flashbacks to the two of them fighting together against the Confederacy, but that's not the bulk of the story and the cover should have reflected this.


Also, a character is revealed to be a traitor, but there's no foreshadowing. It would have been better if we'd gotten an early POV from him that shows him resenting Raynor for not paying the crew, resenting him for risking all their lives to rescue his old girlfriend (who in the state she was in didn't want to be rescued), etc.

Overall, it's a fun way to spend an evening and get up to speed for Heart of the Swarm. I'd recommend waiting for the paperback, but the paperback won't be out until after the game. 8.5 out of 10.

Bigger "Heart of the Swarm" Trailer

The other day, I found a new trailer for Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm.  Apparently it was revealed at BlizzCon.



Looks like the Dominion has shown itself untrustworthy, on a much larger scale that just sending in a bunch of Ghosts to kill Kerrigan like the earlier, smaller teaser trailer revealed.  Like, attack-by-capital-ships untrustworthy.  And Valerian and Warfield might not be coming out of that treachery alive....

(Sucks for Warfield, as it seemed he was on the level and even made Rayor commander of the entire Dominion force while he was having his arm fixed.  But if Valerian went into this intending treachery from the beginning, to hell with him.)

Some of the promotional material makes what's going to happen in HOTS sound really GrimDark.  Raynor has gone missing, while some artwork on the Blizzard web-site depicts Kerrigan with a reinfested arm. 

I hope they don't kill off Raynor and then have Kerrigan go totally insane and reinfest herself or, worse, have her think Raynor is dead, reinfest herself, and then have Raynor show up alive again and think Kerrigan is truly irredeemable even with the use of the Zerg-purging artifact.  Heck, with the dialogue snippet "the girl you knew is dead," this makes it sound like despite being forcibly de-Zerged, Kerrigan is still evil.

Wings of Liberty was a lot more optimistic than the first Starcraft and Brood War, with the Dominion public rioting upon learning of Mengsk's true evil nature and the Swarm decapitated and Kerrigan returned to human form.  That was pretty refreshing, considering how dark the first games really were. 

One can hope they took the darkest quotes and scenes from Heart of the Swarm out of context and strung them together to make the story sound a lot more GrimDark than it actually will be--some of the promotional material describes Kerrigan only remembering some of what she did as Queen of Blades and not liking it, which shows there's hope for her.  She does look pretty angsty when she's loading her rifle, while the Queen of Blades would have probably been joyfully homicidal.  Raynor is only missing, not confirmed dead.  And the new trailer depicts a lot of human-on-human warfare, including what looks like a military drop on a human planet. 

Ending the Second Great War with Kerrigan's Zerg and Raynor's Raiders holding Arcturus Mengsk to account for his many sins would be awesome, with the Dark Voice and his Protoss-Zerg hybrid army over the horizon.  However, some stuff I've read on Battle.net indicates the hybrids will be entering the sector en masse and they'll put the hurt on the player, so punishing Mengsk might not in the cards for a bit...

BTW, the soundtrack in this trailer is just awesome.

It's Nice To Be Noticed, But...

I logged on this morning and found I was getting traffic from the Starcraft Wiki, this link in particular.

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Johnny_Raynor

The link basically states that Johnny Raynor, Jim Raynor's apparently-dead psionic son who is only mentioned in the novel Liberty's Crusade (and I think some of the comics as well) would have appeared in the novel I would have pitched to Blizzard had the company been willing to accept unsolicited submissions.

Thanks for the publicity, but that isn't accurate.

What I was suggesting on the earlier page was separate from my novel.  For the sake of clarity, I will explain both:

*My proposed novel would have taken place after Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and set the stage for Heart of the Swarm.  As I imagined it, the events of Wings of Liberty decapitated the Zerg Swarm and caused a lot of political instability within the Terran Dominion as Mengsk's greatest crime--calling down the Zerg on the Confederate capital of Tarsonis and obliterating it--was revealed.  Without Kerrigan, the Zerg Swarm was breaking apart and going wild and Raynor, Prince Valerian, and Valerian's General Warfield were going to liberate threatened worlds--and taken them from Valerian's evil, embattled father at the same time.  Meanwhile, Sarah Kerrigan, the Zerg Queen of Blades now restored to humanity, was dealing with the colossal guilt being the worst war criminal in human history brings as well as the hostility of Raynor's crew and the threat of revenge by another formerly-infested Terran freed from the Swarm.

I wrote a synopsis, a treatment, and all the other stuff for my submission and wrote William Dietz, author of the novel Starcraft II: Heaven's Devils, about how to proceed.  Unfortunately, I learned that Blizzard operates on a "don't call us, we'll call you" policy re: tie-in fiction.  My friend Matt Schafer later found this policy had been posted on Blizzard's web-site too.  No unsolicited fiction.

Darn.  In any event, the trailer for Heart of the Swarm and some early bits of the storyline show my predictions as to what would happen were off-base.  The Dominion appears to betray Raynor and company early on, Kerrigan escapes to take control of the Swarm, and Raynor has gone missing.  Ouch.  I hope he survives the whole experience.

*The scenario with Raynor's son was something I posted on the Battle.net forum as something I wanted to see in Heart of the Swarm.  My scenario was that Kerrigan's assault on the weakened Terran Dominion using Zerg she has brought under her control would take her to the Ghost Academy.  There, she would find  Raynor's son, who it turns out really didn't die in a "shuttle accident" soon after being taken by the Confederate government and had been part of the Ghost program ever since.  One fellow thought this was awesome and that he'd never imagined Kerrigan as being a stepmother before.

This scenario would have been a mission in the actual game (Kerrigan attacks the Ghost Academy), not part of the proposed book.

Could someone who is a member of the SC Wiki correct this?  Feel free to link to this page as well as the first one.  :)

"Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm" Trailer Is Up

I found a Blizzard newsletter in my Spam box the other evening and it sent me to the following link.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/heart-of-the-swarm-preview/

That link in turn sent me to this trailer, which is also posted on the Blizzard web-site.



So much for the grand idea I had for an interquel novel taking place between the human campaign and the Zerg one. 

(I actually wrote a query and a long and a short synopsis, and e-mailed William Dietz, the author of Starcraft II: Heaven's Devils, to see if he could get me the hook-up with Blizzard.  He said with Blizzard, it's "don't call us, we'll call you."  And there was something on the site I overlooked that Matt Schafer found for me that describes how they don't accept unsolicited content.)

It seems the Zerg campaign begins immediately after Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty with a backstab by Dominion forces--Nova and a bunch of Ghosts bust in and try to kill or capture Kerrigan while she's still recovering from being, as some Battle.net people have put it, "fumigated."

Raynor at the very least survives to see Kerrigan obliterate her would-be assassins, but some of the promotional material asks the question "Where is Jim Raynor?"  Hopefully he'll survive.  Maybe I'm just being a hopeless romantic, but I'd like to see a happy ending for both of them.

Based on what we see so far, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of conflict between the Zerg and the humans.  Kerrigan apparently makes war on the Dominion forces seeking to cleanse Char and later wages "genocidal" wars with the Protoss (given how the Protoss exterminate the Zerg whenever they find them, it might not be the Zerg being the bad guys this time), but the campaign looks like she's reuniting the Swarm and assimilating dangerous wildlife to use their genes to create new Zerg war-breeds.  Something tells me it'll be primarily Zerg-Zerg and Zerg-Protoss combat, with the only anti-human fighting being at the beginning of the campaign.

Drat.  I was hoping she and Raynor would team up and take down the Terran Dominion once and for all.  I even had a scenario I suggested on Battle.net for a campaign mission where she brought down the Dominion Ghost Academy and found Raynor's son, who was taken as a child into the Ghost program, and brings him back to his father.  It would be a good tie in with the books--little Johnny Raynor is mentioned in Liberty's Crusade--and would tie the expanded-universe in with the actual games.

(Blizzard, if you do intend to use this plotline, don't junk it because someone else came up with the idea and you fear lawsuits.  I promise here, in view of the world, that I didn't suggest the idea to you.)

Nothing definite on the release date, just the usual "we've got high standards and we'll release it when it's ready."  Not that there's anything wrong with not releasing products prematurely--far from it--but I would like to know when it comes out.

(My computer can't run the first game as it should be run, let alone this, but I could always play it elsewhere.)

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm Ending? (SPOILERS)

http://kotaku.com/5709838/ending-leaked-for-starcraft-iis-next-chapter

Found this online today.  Supposedly it's the cinematic ending for the Heart of the Swarm.  I can't copy the embed HTML to post the video here and in any event, given how Activision has yanked it from elsewhere due to copyright, they'd make me take it down sooner or later anyway.

If it's genuine, it must be an early version due to how crude the graphics are.  It does correspond with the information released early on about how Kerrigan, de-infested at the climax of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, rebuilds her power over the Zerg Swarm via mutations, since she is essentially back to being the Queen of Blades.  She sounds like Tricia Helfer, who voiced her in both her human and Zerg incarnations in Wings of Liberty, only without the scary buzzing aspect to her voice.

I'd rather this not be the ending, or at least the final ending. 

For starters, Kerrigan is infested once again, which isn't really necessary for her to control the Zerg.  In some of the canonical material taking place earlier, she was able to control individual Zerg telepathically while a Confederate Ghost.  Her removing the last of the psionic inhibitors the Confederates installed in her during the first game should be enough for her to control great numbers of them without turning her back into a bug.

Her leaving human space, and thus Raynor, behind, is also rather sad.  There's enough sadness in this world as it is.

Furthermore, what exactly is going on with the naked Kerrigan clone in the tank?  Unless whatever is being done to her causes her to psionically attack Kerrigan, cloning doesn't work that way.  If someone cloned somebody, they'd be identical genetically but a lot younger and attacking them wouldn't hurt the original genetic donor a la stabbing a voodoo doll.

Of course, she could be a "Chekhov's Gun" if Blizzard ultimately wants a happy ending for Raynor and Kerrigan.  Bug-Kerrigan could be killed or mortally wounded in, say, the final battle with the Dark Voice (which would be in the Protoss campaign, which takes place after Heart of the Swarm) and telepathically transfers her consciousness into the clone, which given her circumstances, might not have a mind of her own and could serve as a nice backup body.

Good to see Arcturus gets his, although I figured given his cunning and selfishness, he'd flee his crumbling empire with his hard-core loyalists and ally with the Dark Voice for revenge, the promise of supernatural powers, etc. and wouldn't be punished for his many crimes until the absolute end of the game.  Still, this is a fairly cool death--Arcturus cursing his enemies ("choke on the ashes") and Kerrigan gets a really nice "THIS IS JUSTICE!" death-scream coupled with (I assume) some kind of psionic attack to finish him off.

I'm wondering if this is a fake designed to mislead people, though, as some people seem to think.  Blizzard could release an abandoned ending or even cook up something entirely new to generate buzz and keep people talking during the long wait until Heart of the Swarm is released.  Some people on Battle.net seem to think it's an older ending for Wings of Liberty that got scrapped due to the whole "Kerrigan must save the universe from the Dark Voice" story element, which does not appear to be accounted for in this video.  One person even claimed it dated back to August of 2009, close to a year before Wings of Liberty was released, which if true, would be a strong argument in favor of it being an abandoned ending for the first game.

I did post some video here a few months back from Blizzcon 2010.  There's a piece of production art depicting Kerrigan as a human (wearing Ghost armor no less) summoning an Ultralisk with what looks like a swarm of Zerglings underneath it.  If I remember right, Ultralisks are fairly high on the tech tree, so she'd be well on her way to regaining control of the Swarm if she was able to control them.  And she isn't a bug again, at least superficially.

Another Blizzard leak seems to indicate Heart of the Swarm's release date will be during the "holiday" period (I'm assuming Christmas-ish) in 2011, which makes commercial sense.  I guess we'll have to wait until then to find out.

No Pretteh Zerg Babiez! (Starcraft 2 Spoilers)

This blog entry is adapted from a post I made on Battle.net a few days ago.  Posting it here because I found on Google Analytics that at least one person came across my blog while searching "Raynor and Kerrigan child" or something like that.  The lolcats-esque title comes from something I saw on SCArmory, another Starcraft forum, about this topic.

On other Starcraft forums and to a limited degree on Battle.net itself, there are some people (probably the hardest-core Raynor/Kerrigan supporters) who think the two of them ought to have a kid now that Kerrigan has been de-infested (or "fumigated," as someone cleverly called it).  At least one person said this hypothetical kid would play some kind of messianic role in defeating the Dark Voice.

Is it just me, or would that be a really bad idea, both logically-speaking and story-wise?

Several reasons:

1. They're not married. Moral considerations aside, it would also be out-of-character for Raynor. Little Johnny Raynor (Raynor's son who died in what was in all likelihood the Ghost program, mentioned in the novel Liberty's Crusade) was born in wedlock, after all.

2. If they were ever officially a couple prior to New Gettysburg, it wasn't that long. Rushing into things of this nature is a very bad idea. Especially since going back to the way things were before Kerrigan was captured by the Zerg at New Gettysburg would be impossible (see below).

3. One word: Fenix. That's a really big elephant in the room. Plus, if something resembling Kerrigan's human personality is in charge post-deinfestation, she's going to be a mess.  She felt bad about calling the Zerg to attack the Confederates at Antiga Prime and objected strongly to Mengsk calling a much large group of Zerg in to attack the Confederate capital of Tarsonis.  She's going to look at what she did as the Queen of Blades and be thoroughly horrified. I imagine Raynor would be willing to be try to work this out, but still.

(And the "Queen of Blades" is in my opinion Kerrigan's unrestrained dark side, not some usurper entity using her body. Some aspect of the Queen was always there and will always be there--and it might well be stronger than it was before.)

4. They both have more important things to do right now.  Mengsk is still on the throne (and due to the revelations about Tarsonis, he's probably weakened enough to kick off it) and the first Hybrids have already arrived in the Sector. The End of Days is coming and it's coming soon.

5. Per my comment about coming soon, there won't be time for some red-headed telepathic redneck to become the Savior of the Sector.

6. Pregnancy would sideline Kerrigan, who (assuming she's on the side of the angels again) would be one of their most powerful fighters, at least in its later phases.

7. Both characters are intelligent enough to realize how tremendously impractical this would be.

Now, I did make comments in my earlier posts on Starcraft 2 that I would like to have a happy ending for both of them and brought up the notion of them retiring to Mar Sara and having red-headed telepathic kids who play with Zerglings like most kids play with puppies.

However, that's for later, as in, after Mengsk is overthrown and the Dark Voice and its army of Protoss-Zerg hybrids is defeated.  Right now, there's a war on.

Lead Me Not Into Temptation... (Starcraft 2 Spoilers)

I said I wasn't going to write anymore fan-fiction when I was finished with The Revenge of the Fallen Reboot, but an idea has occurred to me that would make a nice post-Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty story.

It's extremely derivative of the ending cinematic of the human campaign of WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos, but that's part of what makes it awesome.

So here goes...

On Korhal, capital of the Terran Dominion, we see that the army has returned from the great victory over the Zerg at Char.  Ranks of Marines, tanks, fighters overhead, etc. form a gigantic victory parade headed by Prince Valerian Mengsk, General Horace Warfield, a Marine in black armor, and a Ghost.  The common folk of the capital cheer, throw flowers, etc.

The four of them lead the parade to the doors of the palace of Emperor Arcturus Mengsk and go inside, where the Emperor receives them in his throne room.

Then Valerian orders the doors to the throne room closed.  Daddy Mengsk starts looking a bit nervous.

Then the Marine and the Ghost remove their helmets.  It's Raynor and Kerrigan respectively.  Mengsk's Marine guards raise their guns, but Warfield orders them to stand down.  They do so.

Kerrigan gets a funny look on her face and snaps her fingers.  Two Ghosts who were hiding in-cloak around Mengsk's throne, fall down, de-cloaked and psionically-immobilized.  It turns out one of them is Nova.

"You're out of your league, little girl," Kerrigan says.  "Stay out of this."

"What are you doing?" Arcturus asks Valerian.

"Succeeding you," Valerian says.  He turns to Raynor.  "Commander?"

Raynor steps forward and draws the pistol he intended to kill Mengsk with but ended up using his one bullet to kill Tychus Findlay instead.

"I want you to see this coming," he says.

CRACK!

Given that there are hints in SC2 that both Mengsk Sr. and Mengsk Jr. are involved with Duran and his creation of an army of Protoss-Zerg hybrids, I don't think Arcturus will go down that easily.  Also, since in the first game, he said he would rule the Koprulu Sector or see it burn around him, I can easily imagine him and whatever loyalists he's got going over to the Dark Voice and its hybrid army if Valerian or Raynor looks like they're going to unseat him.

Still, the tyrannical SOB certainly deserves something like the above scenario happening to him.

However much fun it would be to write that, I should probably focus more on Escape from the Wastelands and other projects that could make me some money.  I've got maybe a fifth of Escape done after all.

Some Interesting Fan-Fics (Starcraft 2 Spoilers)

I've come across some interesting fan-fics lately and I figured I ought to share them.  Two of them take place in the aftermath of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, which some of my friends haven't played yet, so I'm putting the spoiler tags in the title so they don't read this article and get spoiled for the ending of the game.

The first one is Emergence, a crossover of the Draka and Mass Effect fictional universes in which some Prothean artifacts are discovered on Draka-settled Mars in the 1980s.  I do like many of the places it goes, even though, with a divergence from the canon timeline 18-odd years before the Final War (and some major consequences of the divergence, like the early deaths of Yolande Ingolffsson and Marya LeFarge), the Final War goes very similar how it did in the The Stone Dogs, the only major difference being the continued survival of Ceres (the Alliance for Democracy's capital in the asteroid belt) and the Stone Dogs-induced destruction of the Alliance submarine that, in the canon timeline, nuked Cape Town.

Despite this, there are some really awesome moments, like the evacuation of the surviving Alliance spatial forces through the mass relay on Pluto or the fact that on Samothrace, the Earth-like planet colonized by the Alliance survivors, they use old-school airships as a low-tech and cheap means of transportation, ironically like how the Draka used them to colonize hostile Africa early in their history.

This second one is entitled A Healing of Hurts and was written by JamesP81, who posted on some of my Starcraft-related blog entries.  It takes place after the scourging of the Zerg on Char and the de-infestation of Sarah Kerrigan.  I didn't like how he made the Queen of Blades some separate entity holding the human Kerrigan a prisoner in her own mind--the way Kerrigan behaves in StarCraft: Brood War indicates the Queen of Blades is essentially "evil Kerrigan," complete with her grudges (Mengsk, Duke, the Protoss) and her attachments (Raynor).  As a result, Kerrigan is a lot more responsible for her actions as QOB than, say, Captain Picard was for his actions as Locutus of the Borg.

(That being said, given the fact her altered mental state was brought about by being forcibly infested by the Zerg and the massive contrast in ethics between human-Kerrigan and the QOB, one could make a good case for temporary insanity.)

Zeratul showing up to essentially play psychiatrist also comes off as really deus ex machina, although to be fair, it is entirely possible he was on the Hyperion the entire time between him warning Raynor of the coming Armageddon Kerrigan will be necessary to stop and the victory on Char.

That being said, he did a good job depicting the probable psychodrama that will take place in Heart of the Swarm (Kerrigan's guilty feelings for the murders committed as the Queen of Blades, for example).  There's so much opportunity for character stuff taking place in HOTS; I hope Blizzard doesn't drop the ball.

The third one is Next Steps, which also takes place after WOL.  This one isn't as well-written as "A Healing of Hurts" and it also depicts human-Kerrigan as being asleep the entire time and not even remembering her actions as QOB until Zeratul probes her mind to see if she's really reformed or if she's indulging in some backstabbing scheme like she spent most of Brood War doing.  I also didn't like it's portrayal of Valerian Mengsk as betraying Raynor soon after the victory on Char (although he's manipulative like his father, he isn't evil like he is), the return of Fenix from the dead, Stetmann having some medical-ethics problems, and the author making Nova Mengsk's illegitimate daughter rather than using her canonical back-story.

That being said, there are some fun moments in this one, like a catfight between Nova and Kerrigan, Zeratul flat-out telling Raynor he historically has not been a very good judge of character when he wants to probe Kerrigan's mind, an extended confrontation between Raynor and Tychus prior to Raynor shooting him (in which Tychus points out how much he's sacrificed for Raynor and Raynor's acknowledgement of that), the possible ways Mengsk could secure his position in the aftermath of the revelation that he deliberately brought the Zerg down on Tarsonis, and an angsty Kerrigan using action figures to replay her torture and killing of General Duke.  Plus, although the author hasn't said so in his replies to my reviews, it seems like he is foreshadowing Kerrigan using her psionic power to take control of the Zerg again.

(Nova suggesting Kerrigan "call" the Zerg on Aiur and her angry response, the fact that creep tumors infesting humans respond to psionic attempts to slow their growth, and the fact that a gigantic Zerg attack that the joint human-Protoss forces intent on reclaiming Aiur might not be able to fight off is coming indicate something could happen relatively soon.)

Jim Raynor: Christ Figure? Spoilers...

I had a thought the other day that Jim Raynor, especially in Starcraft 2, is actually a Christ figure, in a particularly Reformed sense.

The main Scripture I am using for this is Romans 5:8, whose text follows:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jim Raynor clearly loved Sarah Kerrigan in a self-sacrificing way (agape) and eventually intended to free her from the Zerg swarm.  Although Kerrigan, after her infestation by the Zerg, was less hostile toward Raynor than toward other characters, she still made war against him, especially when they were both after pieces of the Xel'Naga artifact or when Raynor and Valerian invaded Char to deploy it against the Zerg. 

This is similar to the Reformed position, based on their interpretation of Romans 8:7, whose text follows:

The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

The Reformed believe that this means man cannot accept Jesus on his or her own--God must act on them first.  Kerrigan did not ask for Raynor's help in Starcraft 2, but was actively opposed to him.  And of her own free will as well--she was no longer under the control of the Overmind, but was acting according to her nature (albeit warped by the Zerg--a moral, compassionate person beforehand, the infestation destroyed her conscience and moral sensibilities and rendered her a de facto psychopath).

Other characters play roles similar to the Pharisees and Sadducees who opposed Christ during His earthly ministry.  Arcturus Mengsk tells Raynor "that treacherous b***** cannot be saved," which reminds me somewhat of the religious leadership that for the most part looked down on "sinners."  Raynor's friend Tychus Findlay and even the well-meaning Matt Horner are also skeptical of Raynor's insistence that Kerrigan can be saved.

The saga even has its own Judas Iscariot--Findlay himself, who is a mole for Arcturus Mengsk, albeit under duress (he's locked into a suit of armor that will kill him on command).  When Raynor and his personal guard find the de-infested Kerrigan, naked and dazed in the ruins of a Zerg hive, Findlay attempts to kill her under orders from Mengsk.  Raynor has to kill his old friend, who was his brother-in-arms during the Guild Wars and fought alongside him during the events of "Wings of Liberty."  This parallels the description of Judas as one who shared in Christ's ministry (Acts 1:17).

However, Raynor's story and that of Jesus Christ do not match up 100%.  Although Raynor risks his life, he does not die, and his love for Kerrigan is romantic/sexual (eros) as well as agape.  Mengsk is also the cause of the situation--he abandoned Kerrigan to the Zerg in the first game--rather than merely a skeptical religious leader.  Raynor also initially intended to kill Kerrigan in revenge for her murder of his Protoss friend Fenix, something he abandoned after Zeratul revealed Kerrigan's prophesied role in the defeat of an evil power that would, without her, take control of the Zerg and use them to exterminate the Terrans and the Protoss.

That being said, there are a whole lot of parallels.

"Starcraft" Crackfic Idea (Starcraft 2 Spoilers)

On my alternate-history forum, in a thread that has de facto become a Starcraft 2 discussion thread, the board member whose handle is Faeelin said that he had a "sappy" idea for what the title of the upcoming Zerg campaign--"The Heart of the Swarm"--means.  Here's his quote:

Sappy prediction: The Heart of the Swarm is about Kerrigan's power to take control of the Zerg post-cure. The Swarm get a heart. A human heart, with the power of wuv.

I added "and a buttload of guilt," considering Kerrigan's many crimes as the Queen of Blades and the fact that, if her caring, moral human consciousness is restored, she's not going to be a happy camper.
 
The board member whose handle is LordInsane added the following:
 
I get this wierd picture of Zerglings frolicking with kids and Overlords serving as transports in a Kuprulu Reconstruction project. After all, if Kerrigan is the Heart of the Swarm, and that heart feels a lot of guilt...

I said that gave me an idea for an SC2 "crackfic," which according to Urban Dictionary means: "A type of fanfiction (or original fiction) that is intentionally unbelievable and insane; often humorous. Usually short, one-shot (stories)."
 
So here's the "plot bunny":
 
Valerian uses the fact that he is the victor of Char, the conqueror of the Queen of Blades, and the fact his father has gotten really unpopular since the revelation he deliberately called the Zerg down on Tarsonis and he seized power for selfish reasons to overthrow his father Arcturus and take his place as Emperor of the Terran Dominion with the assistance of Jim Raynor (Raynor's Raiders) and Sarah Kerrigan (in control of much of the Zerg Swarm).
 
Once in power, Valerian pardons Raynor and Kerrigan for any crimes they may have committed against the Dominion, a move that is likely to be extremely unpopular if the human identity of "The Queen of Blades" becomes public knowledge.
 
The Dominion legislature (apparently there is one, with representatives of each constituent world) goes along with Valerian's pardon re: criminal charges--but votes to impose a gigantic civil penalty on Kerrigan for the carnage she's caused (which among other things, includes "casualties in the billions").  This settlement would be essentially unpayable by normal means.
 
Luckily, Kerrigan has got abnormal means at her command--billions of Zerg.  She's a clever, resourceful woman, so she'll put the Swarm to work paying it off.
 
LordInsane's suggestion of using Overlords as a means of transportation is a good one, and I was able to expand the concept of a Zerglings-as-pets to devise some lyrics for what could be one of the creepiest children's songs imaginable:
 
"How much is that Zergling in the window?  The one with the waggley...spines."
 
I also pondered how one could employ hydralisks and ultralisks in hunting or in rodeos--a cowboy who can successfully ride one of those without being made lunch would be exceptionally skilled.
 
I could write an entire "crackfic" devoted to all the ways Kerrigan could use the Swarm to pay reparations for all the damage her Zerg alter ego caused, but I've got things I need to work on, so I'll leave that up to my loyal readers.  If you write it and post it, please be sure to tell where you got the idea (and include a link to my blog).
 
Have at it!

Starcraft 2: What's Next? Spoilers Contained Therein...

I went to TVTropes the other day hoping to learn more about Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty but thinking that, since it wasn't that long since the game came out, I wouldn't have the entire storyline ruined.

Wrong.  Pretty much everything's there.  Life lesson--if you see a lot of spoiler tags, assume someone's beaten the game already and don't read them.

Of course, Starcraft 2 at present is only the human campaign, which my friend David said is so well-done it's better than the three-races campaigns of the first Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War and, for that matter, many movies.  Scuttlebutt online is that the Zerg campaign "Heart of the Swarm" won't come out for another 18 months.

So now it's time to speculate as to what's going to happen in that one.  For the record, this is all speculation based on what's happened in Starcraft 2 and scuttlebutt online about the later campaigns.  I don't have any inside sources feeding me information.

David told me that due to the revelation that Terran Dominion Emperor Arcturus Mengsk brought the Zerg down on Tarsonis, much of the Dominion is open revolt.  Furthermore, his son Valerian has taken much of the Dominion's fleet for the attack on Char, which would weaken Daddy Mengsk further, especially since David says that Valerian wants to use Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan (de-infested during the climax of the campaign) to help overthrow his father.

I suspect that the Zerg campaign will involve Kerrigan attempting to re-establish her control over the Zerg to use them against the Dominion alongside Raynor and Valerian and/or against the Zerg-Protoss hybrids and the "Great Hunger" behind them.  The rumors about the Zerg campaign describe it as kind of like a role-playing game where Kerrigan "levels up" and gathers new mutations to help her take control of more and more Zerg.

If her de-infestation decapitates the Zerg Swarm and it either starts falling under the control of the Protoss-Zerg hybrids Zeratul foresaw or goes wild and starts killing everything, I can imagine Kerrigan being needed to take control once again.  Zeratul said she was necessary to keep the hybrids from using the Swarm to exterminate the Terrans and Protoss and her taking control of the Zerg would be a good way to stop this.

Even before she was infested, according to other Starcraft media, she was able to control Zerg, but I could imagine her de-infestation could weaken her abilities in that field.  The "leveling up" part I could imagine as her using her psychic abilities to compensate for her lack of Zerg biology to take over more and more of the Swarm, although I hope to heck and back that they don't re-infest her (the "new mutations" part). 

I liked Raynor/Kerrigan from the first game (it alternated between being hilarious and sweet) and the breach brought about by Mengsk's treachery and her infestation was sad.  I would prefer to avoid the sad and unhappy, thank you very much.  Besides, it'd basically be rehashing the original game and Brood War and I think Blizzard can go in a much more interesting direction with Kerrigan's character than having her getting "re-bugged" (as opposed to her being "de-bugged").

Think about it.  She was probably the sole survivor of the forces Arcturus abandoned on New Gettysburg, there's the physical and psychic trauma of being captured and infested, and there's all the evil stuff she did as the Queen of Blades.  Assuming her de-infestation restores her human personality--which, based on how she recognizes Raynor and smiles, I think it did--she's going to likely have a colossal amount of survivor's guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder, and ordinary guilt-for-sin.  This on top of the issues she had before, due to her experiences in the Ghost program.

Her overcoming all these issues to take control of the Zerg Swarm once more, for good (protecting the sector from rogue Zerg, overthrowing Mengsk, and defeating the hybrids) and not for evil (her own self-aggrandizement) this time would make a really interesting story arc for her and perpetuate her status as a strong female character.  Bonus points if she does all this while dealing with everybody who is out to kill her for what she did as "the Queen of Blades" (essentially everyone except Raynor and Valerian, and Valerian might well sell her down the river to ensure his popularity with the general public and although Raynor can be trusted, some of his crew probably can't).

Her slowly but surely reverting to "the Queen of Blades" even after all the trouble gone to to save her from the Zerg and her own dark side (she killed Raynor's Protoss friend Fenix of her own free will) would just be a major downer.

Despite all the horrors I inflict on my characters in my own writing, I'm a big fan of happy endings.  Valerian overthrowing his tyrant father and bringing peace to the human powers of the Koprulu Sector, the "Great Hunger" being defeated by the combined efforts of the three races, and Raynor and Kerrigan retiring to Mar Sara to have lots of red-head telepathic kids who romp with Zerglings like ordinary kids might play with puppies would be a nice ending. 

Hopefully the Blizzard powers-that-be won't read this and decide to rework everything to avoid the possibility of being sued--apparently movie producers won't even listen to idea pitches anymore for fear of stuff like this happening.  Blizzard people, if you've already come up with something resembling the above storyline, for the love of all that's holy, USE IT!  I hereby solemnly swear that you did not get it from me!

(Seriously, they probably already have the macro-plot mapped out already even if the Zerg and Protoss campaigns aren't close to ready yet.  But people have done very odd things due to fear of litigation.)

In any event, the reason I haven't gone out and bought the game yet is because my computer isn't advanced enough to handle it.  I've got 2 GHz processor speed and 960 MB RAM and the game requires 2.6 GHz and 1 GB RAM.  Plus I don't know if my computer's video card can handle it, although I'm able to watch cinematics and the like on YouTube.

I'll swing by the Best Buy at some point and see how much it is to upgrade my computer.  I wonder if they have a "Starcraft 2 Upgrade Package" available?

If I do buy the game, I'll be sure to play it and blog about it here.